How to View Quality Theory from a Contingency Perspective - Case Study Example

How to View Quality Theory from a Contingency Perspective Although the importance of quality, in business organizations has been recognized since thebeginning of the 20th century, its real importance was felt during the Second World War. The Total Quality Management is concerned with doing things in the best possible manner and to look for continuous improvement in the same. TQM was initially publicised as a universal solution to all kinds of quality management problems (Kurtus, 2001). Quality management is concerned with examining the various processes in an organization and to ensure most efficient utilization of the same. This does not mean that the work process should get routinized. Rather, enough flexibility has to be maintained, in order to meet all kinds of future changes and contingencies. In the modern dynamic business world this is far from being true. Hence there is the need is to develop a contingency approach to the quality management theories. The contingency perspective of quality management states that there can be no single management theory which can be used as a solution in all organizations under every circumstance. Hence all the elements of management, that is planning, organizing, staffing and directing needs to be suited to the requirements of the organization. The various factors upon which such decision making depends, include various environmental factors as well as several internal contingencies. (Stahl, 1999, p 78) The experts believe that the quality management is made up of two aspects namely, quality control and quality learning. Whereas control refers to the use of the quality improvement theories in an organization, learning refers to the use of the same in a contingency perspective. These two elements are also influenced by various moderators like the organizational structure and the environmental uncertainty, which in turn affects the overall performance. The managers need to have an effective balance between these two conflicting goals in the organization, so as to effectively deal with the situational uncertainties of the business. Thus it can be said that the successful working of an organization is dependent on the adaptability of its internal change processes to its external environment and to the contingencies occurring due to the nature of its business. (Giaever, 1998) A question can be asked in this regard, whether the Quality in itself is contingent or not. (Beckford, 2003, p. 151). There may be two dimensions of this question. The first one is the quality, which is determined by measuring the output of the organization. The second one is concerned with the definition of the quality as a whole. The answer to the first question has to be definitely in the affirmative. This is because the quality of the product or the service of an organization is decided by a host of factors like the expectation of the consumers, the nature of the inputs, procedure and the processes and various other internal and external environmental factors. Thus the quality of the product is contingent on various factors of the system, which requires a situational approach for managing the organization in order to achieve the desired level of quality. The main problem that is encountered is in defining the second level of Quality. Different experts on Quality have defined the same with their own perspective. Crosby says that it is the confirmation to the requirements, Juran defines quality as a function of Planning, while for Deming quality meant eradication of error. It is now being felt that the in the modern ever changing business environment, it has become difficult to define quality in such water tight compartments. Different customers of the company may have different perception about quality as they have their individual expectations from the company’s products. This may prove to be a problem for organization as they find it difficult to define what exactly can be termed as quality. The target for the companies in this situation should be to try and produce the most appropriate products, with the focus on an error free production process along with a focus on keeping the prices low. The main criteria for maintaining quality is an effective interaction in the organization as well as between the organization and the environment. The communication with the environment helps in understanding the needs of the customers, while the internal communication helps in making the employees aware of what is expected from them. There is no single theory which can satisfy all the aspects of quality management in an organization. The various theories propagated by the quality experts do not lead to the same results and they might even be contradictory. The most important task for the managers is to apply those theories which are best suited to the particular situation. Here the importance of the contingency approach comes into play. This approach tells us that the effectiveness of the various philosophies depends on the peculiarities of the particular situation. It has also been suggested that instead of directly implementing a readymade technique, the managers must first test the suitability of such quality systems in their organization, make the necessary changes and only then should go for the implementation. Following are the most important quality theories propagated by various quality experts: Deming laid emphasis on the system management and statistical analysis for the continuous improvement of quality. He propagated a quality theory, which was made of 14 points. This theory was used by the Japanese industries with much success as they took the lead in quality over most of the countries including the US. His theory talks about maintaining a long term commitment towards quality, to make the workers feel responsible about the same. This theory also talks about minimizing costs by building up strong relations with the suppliers and considering them as partners in the organization. Deming’s works led to the successful development of some other management techniques like the Just in Time (JIT) approach, which has helped companies across the world to maintain inventory at the lowest possible cost. Most importantly, Deming also focussed on improving the quality of the leadership in the organization. He postulated that the management is responsible for 85% of the errors, as most of the errors are caused by the defects in the system. Workers are responsible for the rest of the 15% of the errors, which are the results of the inputs in the system. Thus the onus of improving quality and maintaining it to a particular level lies on the leaders of the organization. (Rien, 1993) Juran proposed three processes to implement changes in an organization. His three measures includes planning, control an improvement. Unlike Deming, who only talks about continuous improvement, Juran divides improvement, into those where there is a need of continuous improvement and where the management should opt for breakthrough improvement. Applying the Pareto law of the 80:20 principles, Juran deduced that the majority of the flaws in the quality of a product are a result of a small number of causes. Thus Juran advises the managers to focus only on those few aspects. He introduced the concept of CWQM (company-wide quality management). (The Economist, 2009) Philip Crosby applied the human relation dimension in the search for quality in the organization. Instead of the statistical approach followed by Deming and Juran, Crosby concentrated on the behavioural and the motivational aspects of management and considered the inputs from the workers as the most important determinant of quality control. He devised a 14 step process for quality improvement, which according to his study would lead to a zero defect production process. (Swington, n.d.) Along with the Americans many Japanese researchers have also come up with ideas of their own, which has been successfully implemented in Japan as well as many other organizations in the world. Foremost among them is the name of Genichi Taguchi. He defined quality as a gap between, “How good something is and how good something could be” (Dalgleish, 2003). Thus bigger is the gap; bigger is the loss for the customers. Although this theory also looks forward towards reducing the losses by improving the quality of the products, unlike Crosby, Taguchi understood that it is practically not possible to reduce the defects to a zero level. Instead the theory works on minimizing the defects to the greatest extent possible. Taguchi has emphasized that focus must be kept on maintaining a balance between continuous improvement and the cost of the same. Ishikawa is another Japanese expert, who has made significant contributions towards development of the quality theories. Among his other contributions like the Fishbone diagram, he is more famous for pioneering the concept of Quality Circles (Dale, 2003, pp 59). These are small groups which comprise of people from the same department of the company, who meet regularly to sort out the quality related problems in their functional areas. Along with the above mentioned experts there are many other researchers, like Robert Camp (benchmarking) and Michael Hammer (reengineering), who have conducted studies on how to improve the quality of products and services in an organization. Thus we see that various researchers have presented their work in different ways and they have formulated different strategies for achieving the required quality standards. In this situation it becomes difficult for the leaders of the organization to choose a quality theory which will be most suited to their purpose. To deal with this problem the management needs to delve upon a few issues in this regard. Thus the managers have to clearly understand the strengths and weaknesses of the company and that of its products and services. Also they need to know about the specific requirements of the customers and how to fulfill the same. The managers also need to keep a tab on all the measures which the competitors are taking so as to improve their competencies in this regard. After a serious thought has been given on these issues, the management will be able to understand the essential requirements of the business. These requirements can then be matched with the various theories on quality development. This will help in selecting those concepts which will then be used in the development of the quality improvement plans for the organization. In most of the cases the business organizations are required to adopt more than one such concepts or models so as to meet any contingent situation. This practice of adopting aspects of various theories so as to meet the situational needs is known as the Contingency perspective of the Quality theories. For designing a quality management framework, which takes into account various contingencies and situational variables is not an easy task. If the management goes through the important Quality theories of the modern period, they will find out that these theories have some common traits in them, which will be as following; Firstly, for designing and implementing a contingent quality system in an organization, the role of the leader happens to be the most crucial one. It is the leadership quality of the top management which will ultimately decide the success or the failure of the various initiatives in the company. Hence the leaders need to become proficient in the quality improvement practices and make the correct application of the same in their respective organizations. Secondly, focus should also be made on the issues related to the employee improvement by providing the necessary training to them. The training should be undertaken with a long term objective, so as to help the employees understand the need for quality and how the same will be achieved under different circumstances. The training will also help the employees to become confident enough to take the responsibility for the quality of the product and services. Thirdly, all efforts should be made for improving the quality in the initial stages itself. Any change or improvement to quality which is made after the analysis of the present level of production largely tends to be reactive and by that time much effort is already lost. Hence the quality functions should be reviewed during the time of the designing of the processes itself. Fourthly, the focus of all quality related issues must always be contingent on the changing needs and the requirements of the customers. The organizations need to gather data on the customer’s requirements and design their quality management systems based on them. Lastly, a quality philosophy needs to be adopted throughout the organization. Such a philosophy needs to take into account the mission and the vision statements of the company and should provide a clear and unambiguous message across the organization on what all needs to be done to reach the desired quality standards. (Foster, 2007) Besides the above mentioned ones, there are a few other factors which are of utmost necessity for the successful implementation of the quality improvement measures in the company. These are as follows: First and foremost is the need for correct analysis of all the available information relating to the quality control initiatives. It may involve the qualitative as well as the quantitative data, which needs to be analyzed properly in order to get the desired results. The next step involves strategic planning. This process helps in the alignment of the important business features with the philosophies of the management. Then there is also the need of proper infrastructure within the organization so as to support the quality improvement process. This infrastructure has to be in the form of human resource and technological support systems, which will provide the necessary framework for the implementation of the quality management programmes. Also the whole exercise of quality management should take the form of a team approach. It is advisable that these teams are made cross-functional in nature, so that the team members are also able to understand the needs and requirements of the functional areas other than their own. In the same context it can be said that the role of the managers and the quality supervisors need to be changed from a policing role to that of a mentor and a guide, so as to help the workers through the various quality management process. Conclusion The achievement of the desired quality objectives cannot be realized overnight. For attaining the desired results the management needs to tread the path of continuous improvement. Also no particular quality theory can be applied in all the circumstances in an organization. Hence the need is to take lessons from the works of various experts in the field of quality improvement and then to suit the same in accordance with the needs of the requirements of the organization. Implementation of the quality improvement programmes in an organization is generally a time consuming proposition. It often leads to technological redesign and process overhaul, which may require the development of a new control process along with large scale organizational revamp. In many cases it requires analysis of large amount of data so as to understand the Quality theories within a Contingency perspective. All this involves large amount of organizations resources and hence should be undertaken with utmost care. The responsibility for the same rests entirely with the management, who needs to provide a visionary leadership, so as to guide the organization through this process. References 1. Beckford, J. (2003), Quality, London: Routledge. 2. Dale, B. (2003) “Managing Quality” Wiley-Blackwell. 3. Dalgleish, S. (September 1, 2003), “Probing the Limits: Quality Theory Critical to Business Decisions”, available at: http://www.qualitymag.com/Archives/fafc820a26c38010VgnVCM100000f932a8c0 (accessed on June 30, 2009) 4. Foster.S. (January, 26, 2007), “Managing Quality”, available at: http://chiron.valdosta.edu/wbfredenberger/foster_ch02.ppt 5. Giaever, H. (1998), “Does TQM restrain innovation”, available at: http://www.giaever.com/does_total_quality_management_re.htm (accessed on June 30, 2009) 6. Kurtus, R. (28 May 2001) “Basic Principles of TQM”, available at: http://www.school-for-champions.com/tqm/principles.htm (accessed on June 30, 2009) 7. Rien, T. (1993), “Planning Deming management for service organizations - quality improvement in business”, available at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1038/is_n3_v36/ai_13183235/?tag=content;col1 (accessed on June 30, 2009) 8. Stahl, M., (1999), Perspectives in total quality, New York: Wiley-Blackwell 9. “Swington, L (n.d.) “Philip Crosby – Zero Defects and Right First Time”, available at: http://www.mftrou.com/philip-crosby.html (accessed on June 30, 2009) 10. The Economist, (Jun 19th 2009), “Joseph Juran”, available at: http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/management/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13881008 (accessed on June 30, 2009) Read More